After I Purchase Insurance, When Does the Coverage Go Into Effect?

Purchasing a home is the single most important investment that a person can make in their whole entire lifetime. The passion with which you invest in a new home makes it crucial to have that investment insured both swiftly and effectively. For these reasons and more, it is critically important for you to ask your insurance company about what is being covered in your new policy and exactly how soon that coverage will go into effect.

The Start of Your Coverage

Regardless of how inexpensive or costly your new rental home insurance policy will be, your coverage will go into effect the minute that your application is accepted and you pay for your first premium. Stipulations can vary from company to company, with some providers requiring you to be permanently moved into your home on the date which the coverage goes into effect. The greatest protectors for any home, after all, are the people who live there.

It is important to make an inventory list of all the important possessions that you have inside your home. These lists can be crucial in the event that you have to make an insurance claim over loss of property. In order to remember your belongings completely and accurately, you will want to have them documented with detail. You could save this information in a series of text files and JPEGs that you keep updated and stored in a private place online, or in descriptively narrated video tapes that you safely store elsewhere.

The Types of Insurance Coverage

The most commonly purchased form of homeowners insurance today is the HO3 policy. The HO3 special form homeowner policy provides coverage in the event of damages inflicted onto a property, barring explicitly-named perils like earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and warfare. With an HO3 service plan, a homeowner will still have to prove that the damage done to their property was caused by one of the listed perils. An HO3 policy can be set to different levels which can cover all of your personal belongings or just your house itself. For American homeowners who live in areas with little or no frequency of natural disaster, the HO3 policy is a very adequate and reliable form of home insurance coverage.

For people who want more coverage there is the HO5 premier homeowner policy. The HO5 operates as an open-peril policy, where damages stemming from any source not explicitly excluded from the policy will be covered. The HO5 policy is better for people who have purchased more expensive homes and assets. The HO5 has the same exclusions as the HO3 policy, but rare emergencies can be covered through specially arranged policies. People who live in heavily disaster-prone regions might be advised to purchase coverage for earthquakes, floods, hurricanes or tornadoes.

Protecting Your Property

Because your home is your most important investment in life, you need to have it protected in every way. As a responsible homeowner, you can be taking a proactive role in the daily and nightly protection of your home. Whenever you see suspicious activity in your neighborhood, try to discuss it with your neighbors, if possible, and report the activity to your neighborhood protection division. In the event of theft or vandalism to your property, be sure to get the names and contact information of the people working on your case so you can relay that info to your homeowners insurance coverage provider. Though you will hopefully never have to file a damages claim on your property, you will nonetheless want to be prepared in the event that you do.

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